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[Sheb]

Erkki: My understanding is that bayonet charge where few, soldiers peppering each other for a relatively long time was common.

[Arx]

Gunin: I doubt archers would generally have shot in volleys. To open, certainly, but thereafter archers shoot fast enough that it's still scary to just keep going, and it puts out more arrows. Also, when one of the Nassaus (forget which) devised volley fire, he thought it was brilliant, implying it wasn't much of a thing for crossbowmen. And if crossbows didn't, archers almost certainly didn't.

[Rolepgeek]

Where can i find info on spaceborne macro cannons?

Also, given that ramming is a viable tactic in BFG, thats a sign the imperium lack range.

BFG sourcebook is your best bet, being free online at this point, given how long ago GW discontinued it.

And really, it isn't. It's more a sign of relative range, compared to speed, armor, and firepower. 40k ships are stupidly tough. As in, I think it is actually stupid, how tough they're described as. The Void Shields on the Retribution are supposed to be able to absorb the mass-energy of the Earth before failing. I always mentally tone down 40k statistics, since GW has said that all canon/lore is in-universe propaganda or writing of one sort of another. Even if it's just Craftworld Eldar scholars who decided they wanted to document what was happening and put it in the Black Library.

Still. The hugely long reload rates necessitated by having a crew reload massive shells in cannons that basically need to be inspected after every shot, which is in turn required by armor constructed of pure depleted plot-onium, and speeds high enough to close those gaps...

And while yes, xenophobia is a big factor, I feel like the bigger one that would cause difficulty is just making contact with the citizenry in that way. You have to have control of the orbit and launch war amounts to an invasion, first. Abominable Intelligence Droids are another matter that did create hatred, as would any sign of xenos crew among the Federation.

I have to say that I got a different impression about the Great Crusade and healthcare system in 40k than Kot did though.

It'll be fun to join in the firearms discussion later though.

[Erkki]

Erkki: My understanding is that bayonet charge where few, soldiers peppering each other for a relatively long time was common.

Yeah, usually the musket volleys were decisive, and the losers were then driven away or chased/finished off with bayonets. Bayonet charges happened often, but bayonet vs. bayonet combat was very rare.

[Parsely]

Gunin: I doubt archers would generally have shot in volleys. To open, certainly, but thereafter archers shoot fast enough that it's still scary to just keep going, and it puts out more arrows.

Also, when one of the Nassaus (forget which) devised volley fire, he thought it was brilliant, implying it wasn't much of a thing for crossbowmen. And if crossbows didn't, archers almost certainly didn't.

Arrows are expensive, and archers did not carry enough arrows with them into battle for individual rate of fire to matter much at all, so no, whenever possible archers would fire in volleys. The only exception I could imagine would be in a siege, but even then the value of a volley cannot be understated.

I don't know of any accurate numbers on Agincourt but I've heard numbers anywhere from 20 to 60 arrows per man.

Here's an excerpt from a Byzantine treatise on warfare:

The baggage animals must follow behind the rear ranks of the infantry, carrying the Imperial arrows of each infantry division, 15,000, so as to provide each set of three-hundred bowmen with fifty arrows each apart from their own quivers. It is up to the chiliarch to count them out beforehand and bind together each bundle of fifty, then put them away in their designated containers, either boxes or casks.

-- Praecepta Militaria, On Infantry

Volley fire was "invented" multiple times throughout history. Volley fire was employed at Agincourt in the 1400s, for example, so Maurice of Nassau cannot be said to have been the idea's originator, nor can it be held as proof that it was never employed with crossbows just because a chap in the 1600s pioneered it's use with muskets.

[Arx]

I detest citing reddit, but reddit cites a source:

Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England has a wonderful summary of exactly the question you're asking. When Henry V succeeded the throne, he immediately began restocking the royal armoury in the Tower of London for a foray into France. He set the fletchers of England to begin making arrows, and we have a record of a contract for 12,000 arrows that cost the Crown £37, 10s, which translates to about $25,000. Arrows were produced in sheaves of 24, and archers carried between 60-75 with them into battle. They were expected to be able to shoot about 12-20 arrows per minute (An archer who could shoot no more than 10 arrows per minute was considered to be unfit for military service. Each archer carried two sheaves of arrows in his quiver and the rest stuck in his belt for quick and easy access, though he may have stuck them in the ground when he was entrenched in a position (say, Agincourt.) Each archer could therefore only shoot for about 3.5-7 minutes with the arrows he had (which is NOTHING in a battle. Seriously, 5 minutes of shooting and you're outta ammo? That's crazy.), so there were wagons that were also filled with arrows, and young boys provided a constant transport of arrows from those wagons to the front lines.

I'm not sure you're fully appreciating the nature of archery back then.

[Parsely]

I'm not sure what you mean. I did say that they didn't carry many arrows, and that post proves my point exactly. I'm contending that firing at will doesn't save you any time if the troops are properly drilled.

Can you prove that they fired at will and not in volleys?

[Arx]

I'm not sure what you mean. I did say that they didn't carry many arrows, and that post proves my point exactly. I'm contending that firing at will doesn't save you any time if the troops are properly drilled.

Can you prove that they fired at will and not in volleys?

No. And that's not a particularly helpful comment, since you can't prove the converse.

However, if the speeds were as disparate as claimed, volleys would reduce the number of arrows shot by something like forty percent, because you have to go at the speed of the slowest. Whether that makes a difference depends entirely on the speed of the supply line, so the answer becomes the one that comes up most of the time in AGG: situational. With arrows easily available, I doubt they'd bother with volleys. If they were less available, they probably would use volleys.

It would also be dependent on terrain. Agincourt was a pitched battle, which wouldn't necessarily have been the most common form.

[Parsely]

No. And that's not a particularly helpful comment, since you can't prove the converse.

Fair enough.

The advantages of volley fire outweigh any advantage you might gain in rate of fire. Men firing as they wish are going to be inaccurate. With peer pressure and direction from officers you can make everyone hit the same spot. Why trust individuals to judge their shots when you can control their fire to ensure that everyone hits the advancing enemy? There is also this impression that volley fire is somehow significantly slower than firing at will. If anything everyone will be faster by proceeding in a coordinated and instinctive manner, doing as they have been trained rather than being under pressure to make difficult decisions on their own.

Men were drilled because they needed to do as ordered, it was the officers who needed to be able to think independently. Allowing individual decision-making might increase rate of fire for the more skilled, confident, and independently-minded individuals, but for others it would slow their rate of fire to below average or make them so inaccurate as to be useless, or reducing the effectiveness of the fire while increasing its volume. The structure of armies for all time has always revolved around lowering the total amount of decisions that need to be made.

My point is that a higher rate of fire does not necessarily lead to more effective fire.

[BFEL]

So back to the Trek/Star Wars thing.

I'll set up a bit of a review.

1. Galactic Empire owns an entire galaxy, Federation has about a fourth of one. Point Empire here.
2. Galactic Empire is apparently faster at FTL because they have an entire galaxy and can make it across in weeks. Another point Empire.
3. Economy. While Empire has more worlds, and thus more total resources, I tried (and possibly failed) to make the point that their industrial techniques don't seem to be as advanced as Federations. So I feel that while they have "more" resources, they might not have ACCESS to said resources, whereas Feds get full use out of what they have. Debate is still needed.
4. Shields...are kinda still up for debate I think? Empire DOES have shields, though it's a bit confusing because they only started showing up in the prequels. But I don't think we ever really answered the shield modulation thing to satisfaction. If phasers can just go right through it would be point Federation, if not I don't think either side gets a point.

I..think that is as far as we got in debate before everything got personal and such. Still a BUTTLOAD more crap to debate on after those, so while Empire is ahead 2 points I'm far from giving up my position. Oh.

5. My point that the Federation has more varied battle experience. They've fought many different types of enemies using different tech whereas the Empire and well...the whole Star Wars universe is basically the same war over and over. There is no significant difference between the battles of the Old Republic era and the battles of the Galactic Empire era. And I suspect there is similar lack of divergence all the way back to the Great Hyperspace Wars.
In short, I feel the Federation will be better equipped to adapt to changing battle strategy.

[Rolepgeek]

Star Wars strategies haven't changed because they've found what works. For them, at any rate. But stuff was still and is still being developed. Differences are more subtle, like cruise missiles vs. carriers or battlecruisers vs. dreadnoughts, but they're still there.

[Arx]

With peer pressure and direction from officers you can make everyone hit the same spot. Why trust individuals to judge their shots when you can control their fire to ensure that everyone hits the advancing enemy?

This doesn't make sense to me. If the archers aren't shooting at the enemies, your problem isn't going to be solved by volleys. If your officers are trying to pick out specific targets between volleys, you're likely wasting a lot of time. You can shout back, forward, left or right during continuous shooting as well as with volleys, I would think.

Men were drilled because they needed to do as ordered, it was the officers who needed to be able to think independently. Allowing individual decision-making might increase rate of fire for the more skilled individuals, but for others it would slow their rate of fire to below average or make them so inaccurate as to be useless, or reducing the effectiveness of the fire while increasing its volume. The structure of armies for all time has always revolved around lowering the total amount of decisions that need to be made.

Shooting at will doesn't involve decisions, though. You're not trying to choose targets or anything any more than you are in volleys. You're just shooting as fast as you can instead of pausing to synchronise.

[NullForceOmega]

When the enemy ranks are organized into tightly packed formations, volleys are superior in every single way to fire-at-will, when the enemy is spread out fire-at-will is vastly superior to volleys, both were standard doctrine of medieval armies.

[BFEL]

Star Wars strategies haven't changed because they've found what works. For them, at any rate. But stuff was still and is still being developed. Differences are more subtle, like cruise missiles vs. carriers or battlecruisers vs. dreadnoughts, but they're still there.

Examples of what exactly has changed would be nice.
As far as I can tell the biggest tech changes in the entirity of Star Wars canon are the Death Star and the Kaminoans perfecting cloning. These were both developed during the prequel movies, so I can only presume Palpatine was Evil Space Da Vinci.

[Parsely]

This doesn't make sense to me. If the archers aren't shooting at the enemies, your problem isn't going to be solved by volleys. If your officers are trying to pick out specific targets between volleys, you're likely wasting a lot of time. You can shout back, forward, left or right during continuous shooting as well as with volleys, I would think.

Shooting at will doesn't involve decisions, though. You're not trying to choose targets or anything any more than you are in volleys. You're just shooting as fast as you can instead of pausing to synchronise.

But that's how you use archers. You don't just put as many arrows downrange as possible, you target formations in order to stop them from attacking or prepare them for an attack. You also can't direct the unit as a group if everyone isn't aiming at the same thing.

Of course it does. You need to look at the enemy and decide they're the enemy (distinguishing targets is not always easy, friendly fire was common throughout history even in a melee and it would be very likely to happen when you're shooting at something from a range), you also need to decide what angle to fire at in order to hit them, keeping in mind the enemy's rate of advance as well as environmental factors. You also need to decide when to stop shooting! Volley fire is a great way to keep track of how many arrows everyone has left and also control the rate of fire. You do not always want to be shooting as fast as possible! You want to be able to direct force precisely, in the exact amount needed. What you don't want is everyone shooting as quickly as possible at an enemy that the leaders do not consider a threat, or loosing 1000 arrows at a formation to find that the situation only required 500, or asking the unit to open fire only to find that half are out of arrows.